Inteview with Cyndi O’Meara

Cyndi O’Meara has had a major influence in my life. Since watching her speak about 8 years ago and then purchasing her book ‘Changing Habits’ I have followed her advice. I admit I haven’t followed it constantly but her message has always been in the back of my mind through this time. Over the last 4 years I have finally ditched my old ways and have been changing one habit at a time to lead me where I am today.

Interviewing her just now (I was so excited I had to write the article right now!) was a great chance for me to ask her some burning questions and to chat to the woman who (without her knowing) has been a massive motivation for me to keep going against what is normal. So here we go…

What are your non-negotiable health rules?

This is hard but I would have to say no processed foods. That’s a definite non-negotiable. I will never eat processed foods, I will only eat real foods.

What is your favourite go-to quick snack?

Well, I have yummy sweets such as chocolate. I make this chocolate from scratch using cacao wafers and add in roasted almonds (you can watch the video here). I will make a slab of that and that will take us a week to eat and then the next week I will make something different because everyone will be sick of that. I make a slice with nuts, seeds, dates and coconut oil and you don’t have to cook it. You just leave it in the fridge. I also enjoy a chia chocolate almond cake with no wheat or anything. I will keep some home-made pesto and tomato relish in the fridge too.

I have a one ingredient pantry. This means that each of the foods in the pantry contain one ingredient. I have nuts, seeds, coconut oil, cacao wafers and things like that in the pantry and fresh produce, herbs, meat and dairy in the fridge. I can literally grab the ingredients to make something simple. One of our easiest snacks is to make scrambled eggs with some rocket, pesto and sweet potato.

It’s all about being organised. I will always have cold cut meats in the fridge from the night before which we then just add to a salad. I make sure I have something sweet in the fridge so if we have a craving then we just eat that and we don’t have to look outside the house for something else.

What do you see as being one of the biggest concerns about our childrens’ health at the moment?

This is a hard one because there are so many elements. I guess one of the biggest concerns is that we are not seeing pregnancy and child birth as a natural process anymore. About 30% of pregnant women are taking antibiotics. 35% of pregnant women are having caesarean sections which means the baby isn’t getting the right bacteria from the birth canal. There are so many factors impacting their tiny immune systems which then can’t function at 100% and they start catching every sickness around and can’t fight it off.

We then try and help them by what they are feeling. If they have a headache we give them something so they don’t feel it but we don’t look at the function of the headache. We don’t look at why they have a headache which is the body’s message to us to sort something out. It could be anything from dehydration or the body trying to eliminate toxins. If a baby is vomiting we give them something to stop that so they feel better but don’t look at why the baby is vomiting. Has it eaten something the body is trying to get rid of? Has the breastfeeding mother? This is what we need to look at to start improving the health of our children.

What is something we could do right now if we are just starting to make some changes?

As my book says it is all about changing one small habit at a time. If you start just by changing the salt you eat and then work up from there. It builds up on each other to make a massive change in your health. One habit at a time.

What an eye opening interview! It was great to chat with Cyndi and hear her views on health. She certainly goes against the grain of what is currently promoted in conventional nutrition and what is in the media. I love that she is so passionate about her message and has raised her children following these same principles.

I hope you can take something away from this interview. If you want to find out more information about Cyndi you can find her here www.changinghabits.com.au She has some great books available and also a range of health foods.

I would love you to let me know what is one habit your could start changing right now to improve your own health? Leave it in the comments below or you can send an email nicky@tinychefs.com.au